Sometimes I got in embarrassed because I see something that I have never seen before.
Usually, I think I tend to care for others but when I got this situation I feel sorry for others and I feel embarrassed. Because I was thinking that I was humble because but I was actually not.
A couple of days ago, like usual morning, after celebrating mass, We cater for just to take a picture that will be sent to benefactors. At that day our novice brother was visiting us, and he attended a couple of days ago our mass. So our Provincial Superior ask him to take a picture of us.
He seemed not to be family with taking a picture with a phone, and he even tried to take from over his head. He is very tall, maybe a little less than 2 meters. So everybody was a little embarrassed. Because I was the nearest to him, I came to him and giving him advice with the hight and angle. However, he again put the camera up to his head and took shots. So everybody didn't say any more and just laugh and said thanks. So did I. But honestly I felt uncomfortableness stays at some part in my heart. Because he did not seem to care what we said, and the detailed advice I gave him.
That my thought had changed right after I took back the phone. And I felt a little shame. Because The pictures were taken with a strange angle, like looking down from higher place. It was wired at first, but soon after taking the phone back to him this thought came up in my mind.
"Ah, this is the world this brother is watching."
In Today's Gospel, We meet the scene where the scribes and the Pharisees confront against Jesus on Sabbath. To the scribes and the Pharisees, Sabbath was not just commandment. They lost the true meaning of Sabbath and it turned into their rule which they had been kept as their tradition. and also it became their measure to judge other people. And they even used that for the trap to seize Jesus. Jesus tried to finish it, and show a new Sabbath with true meaning. Jesus finished an old tradition, and he began a new tradition with true meaning.
In my meditation, I thought what is the scribes and the Pharisees' Sabbath in me, Something that I lost the true meaning and use it as a measure to judge other people, and use as a trap to seize other people.
Then It reminds me of what happened on that morning, and I realised that to the novice brother, the world that I live in itself could be the scribes and the Pharisees' Sabbath. When I feel like this my mind is not fully open yet, I always think of a scene from Japanese Drama.
Old successful Japanese Drama 'Beautiful life' is about the love story between a male hairdresser who is a bad boy and a female librarian who is in a wheelchair. That Drama taught me how I have to get along with the disabled people. At first, the guy was mean to her, teasing her. But after he found he was in love with her, during their he could finally realise how difficult this world is for disabled people to live. The famous restraint he made a reservation had too many steps for them to carry her with her wheelchair. The ordinary road was too rough for them to talk to each other on their date.
I am not sure if my memory is right, but as far as I remember, on the day he truly opened his heart to her, he took her to his special place and watched the sunset which he always did alone. the place was a pedestrian overpass which is in the centre of the city. Sunset was going down to the heart of the city, and watching it from a higher place was awesome. He wanted to give this to her as a present. while he was taking things in his mind, she suddenly began to cry. He was so surprised and sat down by her putting his hand on her shoulder and asked why she was crying. Then suddenly his face hardened and said in his mind.
"Ah.. this was the world she had been lived in."
The difficulties of living life are the same for all of us. and living with what I feel comfortable and what I think right can give us a rest.
But I think little effort like standing on a chair or sitting down on a pedestrian overpass sometimes can help us to accept the Sacred Heart of Jesus, and help us to end the scribes and the Pharisees' Sabbath in us and begin a new life.
We live without seeing the world with the eyes of our brother and sister, so we live disappointment and hatred.
May Our Sacred Heart of Jesus lead our heart to yours so that we can be renewed as Jesus had shown to us.